Modern Family star Ariel Winter is dreaming of a legal career after she graduates high school.

The 17-year-old actress has spent the last several years testing custody laws after becoming estranged from her mother and recently winning emancipation, and now she's fascinated by the justice system.

Winter is still a year away from getting her high school diploma, but she's already looking in to continuing her education, and she tells E! News that while she doesn't plan on completely turning her back on acting, she has a back-up plan just in case her career falls through.

Winter reveals, "I'm thinking of majoring in business and law... I would love to continue acting but it's definitely important, I think, to go and do something else as well. You never know if something's not going to work out, if one day acting is like, 'No, we don't like you anymore!' You gotta have something else you can do.

"I've always been interested in law so I think it'll definitely be something that I'll love to do and also go to school for."